Title

Authors

Abstract

The preferred political metaphor in the constitutionalist context was the mystical political body, a concept that defined a system in which power was shared and the well-being of the community was linked to the well-being of the individual. Within the mystical political body, the theoretical possibility exists for women not only to occupy a civic space through organic (and organological) association but also to articulate their perspective and its consequences for the political community in a civically approved way. In the mystical body, women approach a citizenship status impossible within the traditional family framework and their witnessing is closely associated with the expansive juridicalism of the sixteenth century.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Recommended Citation

Allison Anna Tait, Family Model and Mystical Body: Witnessing Gender through Political Metaphor in the Early Modern Nation State, 36 Women’s Studies Quarterly 76 (2008).